The Legend of the Jedi Queen

4. The Magpie Bridge

Rey's relief was intercut with the feeling of the air tightening, the small roar that accompanied her husband in the Force. When she looked up, she saw his face, and her anger completely overwhelmed her. She didn't care where she was or who overheard what.

"Why did you let this happen?" she demanded.

Ben blinked, surprised. "Rey. . . What happened? Is Nellith alright?"

"Nellith is fine," Rey admitted, let her grief and frustration surge forward to replace the pure anger. "I'm fine. We were attacked."

"Not on Aquilae?"

"No, at a refueling station," Rey said. She hated being so vague, but what if the reason they had been attacked was because of Ben being bugged? She knew General Hux still had a vendetta for Ben. The only reason his true allegiance, Nellith, and their marriage hadn't been discovered was because of the Knights of Ren's loyalty to the true Jedi ways.

They might've once been lost, but Rey knew their hearts were as true as any of her Jedi. They were the last ones to be trained by the legendary Luke Skywalker. But only one other person would agree with her.

"I'm sorry, Rey," he said, and he reached for her hands. She took them, and they touched. He was here, right here, right now. That was all that mattered. He closed his eyes and touched his forehead to hers. Then he opened his eyes, and she could feel his soul, imprinted on hers for all of time and space.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

The mantra was to a roaring heartbeat, their love was imprinted in the Force, their love was the Force. They were stubborn, broken, and sometimes too stuck in their pasts to even remember the faintest possibility for a future, but they loved each other anyway. It was Rey's bravest choice, in her opinion, to let him in and forgive him. He had forgiven her faults long before, anyway.

Through the dark, she'd come to see the light.

Through the chaos their love had wreaked on the galaxy, they'd resurrected the order of ways.

Through tempestuous emotion, like the seas of Anch-To during a storm, they had brought the serenity of the twin suns that Luke Skywalker saw last in his dying moments to each other.

They completed each other in a way Rey had never been able to explain to anyone. This moment only exemplified that.

She hadn't realized she was crying until she felt his hand on her face, gently sweeping them away.

"Please don't cry. Let me help."

Within those words, Rey heard the young boy he once was. The one who never wanted to be a monster, the one who wanted love, the one who was so afraid of the dark. Every day she knew that was the true core of who and what she loved. Both the light and the dark, Ben Solo and Kylo Ren, loved her. That took a long time to accept.

"You can't," Rey said, shaking her head. "I know you have more enemies than we'll ever know."

"What did they look like?" The threatening edge of Kylo Ren was back.

"Black hood on one, regular clothes on the other, both had red lightsabers," she said.

Ben's face darkened. "I'll look into it."

And with that, the connection broke. Rey wiped her tears away, and then realized that her daughter had witnessed it. She turned around to see a very confused Nellith.

"You were talking to Dad again. . . Weren't you?" In that moment, Rey could see that the little boy who was scared of the dark lived within his little girl. Her eyes reminded her so much of Ben's. . .

Focus, Rey.

"I was," Rey admitted. She straightened. "Where were you, while Chewie and I were fixing up the Falcon?"

Nellith winced.

Terrible liar, just like her father.

"I was at the racing arena," Nellith said. "I was having fun, and I wasn't paying attention. . . And I think I might've accidentally broken the all-time record. I don't know for sure, but they were talking about a new champion in the lobby."

Rey didn't feel as angry as she thought she was. Only the feeling that she had failed her daughter in her haste, had not explained what her daughter needed to know.

"You need to be careful," Rey said, her voice coming out hard and clipped. "You drew attention, and that's how they found us. Force-wielders are great pilots, and your father's enemies, they'd know to look for a young pilot who's doing extraordinarily well despite their first try. . ."

"I'm sorry, Mum," Nellith whispered. "I didn't know. . ."

"I should've explained it to you," Rey said. "But I didn't. I'm sorry. I failed you."

"Mum—" Nellith looked about ready to cry.

"It's going to be alright," Rey said. "I'll tell you something else you need to know right now. I will not be training you in the ways of the Jedi. I'm getting you to Tatooine, where your mentor will meet us. Your mentor will be able to train you better, and won't forget this stuff."

This can't be real. This can't be real. Thiscan'tberealthiscan'tbereal—

Her heart felt as if it was going to shatter her chest, and she felt as if she were drowning at the same time. Her skin felt cold and icy, and she wanted to fold into a speck of dust, to stop existing, to stop feeling this feeling that she wasn't wanted, that she had disappointed her mother so badly, that she didn't want her around anymore.

More than anything, Nellith wanted to be a small child again, who could maybe forget this one day.

But she was fourteen, too old to forget something like this.

She couldn't handle being in the same room as Rey anymore. She clutched her stuffed tauntaun to her chest and ran to the medbay, and fell onto the bed in the fetal position, sobbing because she could.

Shedoesn'twantmeshedoesn'twantmeshedoesn'tloveme—

Rey stayed in the cockpit for most of the flight. It was in these moments that she realized how hopeless it was to raise a Skywalker. The past, with all its scars, lived on in the Skywalker children, and the same could be said for Nellith. Her father's scars from his childhood had passed to her, and that same fear of abandonment, despite such different lives still lingered.

At one point, she decided to get up and check on her daughter. She found her in the medbay, cuddling the toy her father gave her, and shivering in her sleep. Rey grabbed a spare blanket and draped it over her daughter. She sat down beside her, and brushed free strands out of her daughter's face.

"If only you knew how much you're loved."

When they landed on Tatooine, Chewbacca volunteered to keep the Falcon in the Cantina.

"I have some games I'd like to catch up on," he'd said.

So as the sun rose high over the sky, Nellith and Rey, dressed in loose white tunics with brown Jedi robes, rented a speeder and flew over the desert, in search of the Kenobi house, where a lightsaber and a mentor would be waiting.